The Chariot of Fire
by LeMoNsOuR
Summary: Part Four of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Montag has lost everything. He finds himself in an entirely new and mysterious world of people who must decide what to do after the chaotic end of the life they all knew. However, Montag notices something's gone wrong with the only person who can help him.
1. Everything Lost

**A.N.:**

**I wrote this a long time ago, back in 2007 when I was still a highschool student in love with cliché writing, had a weakness for typos, and quite a dark way of looking at the world. Suddenly possessed by an unexpected desire to look over my old Fanfictions I noticed that Fahrenheit 451 now had a section of its own. I thought I'd share this with anyone interested to read. A piece of advice to any boy or girl who feels the rush of adventure and excitement when she writes stories, don't let your adult life take that away. It has been a long time since I'd written anything, and now when I do, the words are not the same. I feel the imagination that has driven me to write these stories as a teenager have been massively diluted by university, bills, work, and other such things many of us can't escape when we finally grow up. For any person who feels the same way about writing that I once did, I hope you realize how precious of a gift it is that you have. Never let that beautiful feeling go.**

**All the best,  
LeMoNsOuR**

PartFour

The Chariot of Fire

Montag didn't have the heart to look forward towards the smog of dust settling over the ground; the place that held him captive under an illusion of happiness. He didn't have the heart to look on either side of him at the men he still couldn't trust. Every direction he looked would hit him with pain, confusion, and loss.

So he looked up.

_So that's what stars look like._

The roar of a plane could be heard but its source unseen. Was it safe now to go back?

Was there really any _point_ of going back?

Montag sucked in a breath of frozen air.

Faber.

The thought of him immediately brought on the faint memory of the smell of socks and laundry detergent. At the end the cowardly lion always got his courage. What use is courage to the dead?

_Don't think that!_he scolded himself.

Besides the tattered clothes on his back and a newly formed black eye, hope was all that Montag had. It was all he could depend on.

Stranger than strange, he couldn't find himself really missing anything from his old home, the place that he had grown up in for thirty years. No emotion, no loss. It was more of the feeling of when a rich uncle dies and leaves you a billion dollar inheritance. You don't care about the dead old geezer... you have what you've always wanted!

He began to recollect words that slowly came to him from Ecclesiastes. He never finished it. Montag had memorized a few pages but never had time to know the whole book. He didn't have the heart to tell _them_ that.

Everyone was seated around a fire ignited by one of the last matches they had in stock. The discussion of books, philosophy, and individualism came up. Montag felt like an ignorant child sitting uncomfortable in a parlor watching patiently as the adults had their big-people's-talk.

"What do you really do here besides memorize books?" Montag said, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and brushing it against his callused palm.

"We discuss them, of course." Granger smiled. The grown-ups smiled at Montag's cute little question.

"Why?" Montag asked again.

A silence.

"Why not?" Granger said.

"That's not what I mean... I'm trying to ask, why would you escape a place of _everything_ only to run into the woods where you have nothing?"

"We have books, Montag. We have thoughts now. To us, that is _everything._We have freedom, and that is worth more than a comfortable bed to sleep in and something to eat every day."

"_Is it, now?"_

Montag didn't ask this question aloud.

"What do we do from here? " asked Alice in Wonderland. "There's no way we can go to the city now. It's hell back there! Where are we going to get supplies, to get food?"

There was a silence.

"We'll find a way," Granger said.

Then the words came. He didn't even feel them slither up his throat and seep out of his teeth.

"What if we find _another_city?"

There were murmurs of approval and cynical exchanged glances between what wold appear to the average eye, a sad group of scraggly hobos sitting around the fire. Yet, Granger looked Pale, and Alice In Wonderland looked as if she had a tick chewing at her left eye.

"No! We don't even know what's out there!" she stood up, looking like a toddler in a sudden tantrum. "We should go back to the city to gather what we can and try to find some survivors."

"Okay, first of all," Montag said calmly, coldly, "there is no real way _anyone_ could have survived. It was a _bomb._Number two; the radiation, the toxic air, and the debris will kill us faster than the starvation that may kill us if we try to find another city."

Alice shrank and sat back down.

Granger still stared lifelessly into the fire.

There was something he wasn't telling them. Montag seemed to be the only one to notice.

"What do you think about the whole thing?" Montag asked, still in his calm voice.

His eyes screened the air for a certain memory; a certain... thought.

"We are going back to the city."

Granger stood up and walked away.


	2. Millie

There was no real talk as they slowly made their trek following the river back to the city.

There was no discussion of books, nor the silent murmurs of people reciting them over and over again. Only the distant silence and exhausted breathing of walking for hours.

He'd been hoping to tell them of the river, and the tree of life bearing twelve fruits. _No, it wasn't the time._

It strangely began to get warmer as they got closer and closer to the city. And there was this smell...

There was a throaty sound and someone from the back threw up on a patch of dandelions on the ground. Everyone began to notice the incredible stench, and the sudden feeling of drowsiness that came along with it.

Was it such a good idea to go back?

"Granger," Montag caught up with him at the front of the group, "Granger. I can't—I mean, I don't think we should go on. Can't you sense something in the air? Or the ringing sound? Don't your hear the ringing?!"

Granger didn't look his way and kept walking forward. Montag, angered, grasped Granger by his shoulder and turned his around. "We could _die."_

"We are going back to the city."

"Why?" Montag asked, breathing exasperatedly.

"We just have to. It's out duty, our obligation."

Montag, at this moment, became sure that Granger was hiding something from everyone. Something that, if not uncovered, may kill them all.

He glared at the man he'd looked up to for the past forty eight hours.

"Granger, that is such bull—"

"LOOK!"

A woman screamed. Mothers covered their children's eyes.

It started with one, floating idly down the river. At first glance, someone would have thought a man was taking a morning swim.

Then they would see his face. An image of a frozen scream. His skin was greenish. Dried blood cracked from the open, black mouth. He floated away as they watched in silence.

Then the next one came. It was a little girl. There was no scream on her face. Just the wax-like portrayal of a sleeping doll.

Children began to cry as more and more bodies, along with debris and cries of horror floated towards the rising sun. People looked away. Some ran into the woods and vomited. Only few came back.

Through the debris and sickly-green bodies, Montag found himself instinctively reaching into the water. looking for supplies. Maybe he'd find a lighter, or even a basket of food. Hesitatingly, he stuck his hand into the cold, cold water, trying to see what he would find. Something slipped into his fingers, and he pulled it out.

A hand.

On one of the fingers was a small diamond ring, and a wedding band just above it.

No.

He pulled the hand, dragging out whatever body it was attached to.

No no.

For a second time in just two days, Montag cried.

"Millie. Oh, Millie". He stroked her flaccid cheek. An image of her, along with a rush of stampeding people running towards the river crept into his mind. They had heard and seen the planes coming, and sought the river for an escape route.

He never thought Mildred had it in her to leave the city.

Many sobbed silently, some just stared.

He felt arms take hold of his shoulders. He could hear Granger's far-away voice making a pitiful attempt to reassure him.

"There's nothing left for us here. She's dead, Montag. You're crying over milk that has already been spilt."

"You mean blood." Montag said, still holding on to his wife.

"Please. We have to get going."

Montag stared with surprise at Granger's still-paled face.

"Can't you see what's in front of your eyes?! Even people that _weren't_in the city died! There's no way—"

Granger grabbed a thick book of physics from Einstein and hit Montag iercely in the back of the head.


	3. The Slipping of Granger's Sanity

The first thing that had awakened him was Alice in Wonderland's high-pitched voice reciting something about treacle and mice.

A hammering in Montag's head caused him to gasp in pain. He was on a home-made stretcher made of a single blanket. It was being carried by Aristotle and the Book of Mark.

"_Why are you doing this_?" Montag had suddenly said in a hoarse voice to no one in particular. No one, heard except for Alice.

He expected her to tell him of how Granger knew what was best, but she surprised him with a single, blue tear.

"I'm scared." she finally said.

For the first time, Montag had realized he was beginning to care. He couldn't let any of these people die.

They didn't deserve it as much as the people who did.

They were almost at the city, Montag could feel it in the ground he walked on, in the air he breathed. The ringing sound had become louder, almost unbearable to him. He suddenly realized that it wasn't a sound that came from the city, but a reverberation coming from his own ear drum itself. Something was causing his ears to ring and his mind to get clouded with drowsiness. He looked around. Some people were rubbing their ear and grimacing. People were beginning to walk more slowly.

"What _is_that?" Alice asked, rubbing her temples.

Something on the face of whom Montag had known to be _The Book of Fun Facts 3_, had brightened. A scowl formed in his lips.

"It's the radiation," the Book of Facts said in barely a whisper. "The air, the smell, the ringing... even the drowsiness..." he blinked several times.

"I'm not moving any further. I'm going back." The Book Of Facts 3 turned around slowly.

Something in Granger snapped. He ran, almost like a butting goat towards the retreating man and grabbed his arm.

"Let me go!" cried the Book of Facts in alarm.

"We have to stick together," said Granger, almost sounding as if every light had turned of in his mind.

He had gone insane. Everyone began to realize it.

"I think Montag's right," said the book of Matthew, "We should find another city."

The Book of Facts pulled free from Granger's grasp and began to run as fast as he could towards the woods.

"No!" Granger cried, and with one swift movement, he tackled him savagely to the ground. There was a sickening crack as the other man's head slammed onto a rock.

Granger stood up, not believing what he'd done.

"Oh my God," a man gasped, "You killed him. You killed one of our only books with vital information we need. You-" He staggered up to Granger, "You killed my brother."

Who knew hobos had handcuffs?

Granger's hands were cuffed behind his back as the book of Matthew and Aristotle kept him in his place.

Montag seemed to have found himself leading the way, letting the others stop to rest every once in a while.

While walking, his foot caught on a metal loop in the ground and he tripped, falling.

"Stop here. We won't be walking towards the city this way anymore." Granger said, daring to speak.

"Who are you to say _anything_ at the moment?" Alice scoffed.

Montag looked closer that the thing he'd tripped over. It looked like a handle. Pulling at it, Montag felt a creak, and realized it was a handle for a trap door.

"Wow, a tunnel!" a little boy cried.


	4. Sacrifice

The tunnel was cold, dark. Edgar Allan Poe took out a flashlight, so dim that it only allowed him to see just in front of him if he pointed the light directly at the ground. Poe led the way while others followed, holding on to each other's shoulders in the darkness as they continued down the tunnel. It surprised Montag how much these people had trusted their leader enough to follow him into the city. And now that their leader had lost all credibility and was now bound by handcuffs, Montag wondered what kept them all going. He realized it was because they had nothing left to lose.

"It used to be a mine," said _Dante's Inferno. _"Look at the marks on the wall".

"If anything happens to us here," said The Book of Facts 2 to Granger, "We'll kill _you_ first." The whole time later the death of his brother, he had been muttering nervously to himself, spontaneously moaning and crying during the walk and twitching violently. Alice in Wonderland walked alongside him, holding his wobbling body tightly and talking in a low, steady, reassuring voice.

It had been one hour, and people began to get tired. The tunnel began to get thinner and thinner, and the two members with the largest bodies had difficulty walking through. A man began breathing heavily, desperately pleading not to go any further. "It's too small. The sace is too small. We can't. I can't breathe!" He was moved to the back of the line by Montag, who reasoned with him that it was the best place to be because it was where the tunnel would be widest.

However, even to Montag, the mine seemed to be a winding path towards nothing at all.

After an eternity of twenty minutes, many people were speaking of going back.

Suddenly, a sneeze. Then a flicker of light from ahead.

Edgar Allan Poe stopped in his tracks. He stood, frozen in fear.

"I saw something," he said.

He gave the flashlight to Montag and backed away into the crowd.

Montag walked forward and what he saw made him gasp.

People.

It was a giant room carved out of the ground filled with _people._Some were in sleeping bags, some were eating, and some sat around a heating lamp warming their frozen hands.

"Granger!" a small woman screamed. Immediately she ran like a determined bull towards the weak, handcuffed man. She appeared to glow like a lantern in comparison to Granger, who looked almost dead with exhaustion. The moment she touched him, Granger's pallor and stiff face contorted and he burst to tears.

They clung to each other and she kissed his rough face over and over again

"Oh God. I'm sorry. Oh God," was the only Grander repeated shakily, looking at the woman with an intensity that Montag did not understand He had never seen such a thing in his life. For quite a while he was entranced by this display. For the rest of his life, that image remained clear and vivid in his memory.

Montag had suddenly discovered that everyone here, too, was a book. He heard the silent murmurs of Charles Dickens (of course, he didn't know it was Charles Dickens at the time) from two men who sat by the fire. A woman carrying a baby was reciting a poem, absentmindedly playing with the infants hair.

"Montag," said Granger, whose removed handcuffs had left only faint marks on his wrists, "This is my wife, the Song of Solomon." She was beaming.

There was a sudden peace about Granger now, though the haunting video of the things he'd done reflected from his eyes. There was, in fact, a sudden peace about everyone as the group-from-the-woods rejoined their family and friends who had been stuck in a hole in the ground for days.

The chariot of fire had finally come to take them up, up, into the thundering sun.

Alice smiled at Montag and gave him an unexplained shrug before rejoining her family who'd stayed by the city as Supply-Retrievers. Montag smiled back warily.

"I think she likes you," said a familiar voice from behind Montag.

There was the sudden smell of socks and laundry detergent.

Montag grinned.

And turned around.


End file.
